Lithuanian University to Open Ilia Chavchavadze Auditorium

The Embassy of Georgia to Vilnius, Lithuania, says that an Ilia Chavchavadze Auditorium is soon to be opened in the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences.

Opened in 1935, the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, the biggest teacher training institution in Lithuania, offers undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate studies in humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, biomedicine and technologies.

The news of the newly named Auditorium was announced while Georgian Language Day was being celebrated at the university on April 14.

Three exhibitions about the Georgian alphabet and its development, Georgian literature and Georgia-Lithuania relations were also arranged during the celebration.

Georgian Ambassador to Lithuania, Khatuna Salukvadze, spoke at the event attended by Lithuanian and Georgian professors and students.

Ilia Chavchavadze (1837–1907) was one of Georgia’s most prominent 19th century writers, public figures and a journalist who lead a number of public movements and institutions.

Chavchavadze is thought to have been one of the first people to introduce European ideas into Georgian society.

Inspired by the contemporary liberal movements in Europe, he directed much of his efforts toward awakening national ideals in Georgians and to the creation of a stable society in his homeland.

As a point of interest, The Society for the Spreading of Literacy among Georgians, founded by Ilia Chavchavadze in 1879, discarded five letters from the Georgian alphabet that had become redundant:

In 1907, Chavchavadze was brutally killed in Tsitsamuri, a village of Mtskheta.

His legacy earned him the broad admiration of the Georgian people. In 1987 he was canonized as Saint Ilia the Righteous by the Georgian Orthodox Church.

Thea Morrison